Luis Suárez May Be Booted for World Cup Bite, Twitter Reacts Predictably

Update (Thursday, 10:00 A.M.): FIFA announced that it is suspending Suárez from nine official matches, as well as from all soccer activity for four months. This extends to his club team, Liverpool, as well. Suárez is also being fined $100,000 Swiss francs. The suspension is effective immediately, meaning that, for Suárez, the World Cup is over.

The original article continues below.

Luis Suárez, one of the best footballers in the world and a ferocious competitor long dogged by controversy, may be booted from competing in the rest of the World Cup. FIFA, the Cup’s governing body, has opened an investigation into Suárez’s apparent biting of Giorgio Chiellini in Tuesday’s Uruguay-Italy match.

World Cup followers will remember Suárez as the player whose intentional handball prevented Ghana from advancing in the 2010 quarterfinals. Though he was given a red card for his actions, Suárez celebrated when Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan missed the ensuing penalty kick. Given that his record also includes two previous biting incidents, and an outburst of racial epithets in 2011, Suárez has long been known as a poor sportsman.

“It looks to me, dare I say it, that he’s had a little bite of Chiellini,” ESPN commentator Ian Darke said as the event unfolded on the screen. The referee did not see the bite, so Suárez was not punished during the game, despite a visible mark on Chiellini’s shoulder. After the game, the Italian defender called Suarez “a sneak” who “gets away with it because FIFA wants their stars to play in the World Cup.”

It’s unclear how his English Premier League team, Liverpool, will react to the incident. Suárez is an incredibly valuable player, but a harsh punishment by FIFA may force the team’s hand. (FIFA rules also stipulate that the body can ban players from all professional soccer activity, though that’s also murky.) A number of other teams (Barcelona, Real Madrid) have been circling Suárez recently, and it’s likewise unclear if his antics have jeopardized those bids.

The bite was the talk of the day on social media, where it was quickly put through the five phases of the Twitter news-event lifecycle: